African Public Square Launch – Fresh Take on Sudan/ South Sudan
The African Leadership Centre (ALC) has established the African Public Square (APS) as a platform to harness Africa’s intellectual power and inter-generational agency to enable a rethinking of the continent’s response to its marginalisation on the global stage and the norm reversal that is creeping into the management of the continent’s security and development challenges.
The APS aims to:
- Speak back to established agendas in the global landscape that place Africa at a disadvantage.
- Offer new solutions and proposals for re-energising Africa’s normative and response framework, with possibilities for Africa’s renewal.
- Expand the constituency of actors that speak for Africa when the spaces for engaging state and continental action are closed.
The APS offers a three-part intervention to raise Africa’s position in the world:
- A convening platform: to convene new and established voices constituting an intergenerational community of African public intellectuals catalysing the repositioning of Africa in the global order.
- An annual high-level (continental) forum – an African/global public debate bringing together prominent African intellectuals along with a variety of interlocutors to frame and propose an alternative framework of engagement on issues of the day shaping Africa’s trajectory.
- An inter-generational community of African public intellectuals in co-leadership of special interventions that propose new ideas and forms of collaboration for responding to Africa’s challenges, and reshaping global engagement to raise Africa’s position in the world.
OFFICIAL LAUNCH OF THE AFRICAN PUBLIC SQUARE
The ALC in collaboration with Africans for the Horn of Africa (Af4HA) Initiative will officially launch the APS in Nairobi, Kenya, on 27 June 2024.
In its first high-level forum, the APS will convene, along with key partners, an initial intergenerational group of African public intellectuals to open a public debate on a critical question: Can Africa escape the twin tragedy of deinstitutionalisation through “militiafication” and externally imposed templates? How can African societies recreate peaceful states that serve the collective and not the few? We will focus on Sudan and South Sudan.
The African Public Square (APS) concept note is attached for further information.
The APS event on 27th June 2024 will be live-streamed on YouTube: NTV Kenya Live and Facebook: African Leadership Centre (ALC) and broadcast live on NTV.
Pre-Launch Event:
To pre-launch the event, the African Leadership Centre, in collaboration with the South Sudan Working Group (SSWG) and Africa for the Horn of Africa (Af4HA) Initiative, will host an X-Space conversation titled “Fostering a Collective Vision for Future Peace in South Sudan” on Tuesday, 25th June 2024 at 6:00 pm CAT/7:00 pm EAT. The conversation will provide a platform to discuss alternative peace solutions that cultivate ownership, reflect the aspirations of peace from the people of South Sudan and bridge the gap between the state and society.
X-SPACE Link: https://x.com/i/spaces/1LyxBnnnOZkxN
